HyperGEN [30] is a cross-sectional, population-based study and component of the NHLBI Family Blood Pressure Program that was designed to identify genetic risk factors for hypertension and target end-organ damage due to hypertension. The cohort is composed of self-reported White and Black sibships in which at least two siblings were diagnosed with hypertension (defined as either self-reported use of antihypertensive medications or SBP ≥140 mmHg and/or DBP ≥90 mmHg at two separate evaluations) before age 60, their unmedicated adult offspring, and age-matched controls. Later the study population was expanded to include other siblings of the original sibling pair as well as any offspring for a total sample size of N=5000. Genotyping on Black participants was performed using whole genome sequencing (WGS), through the NHLBI WGS program (N=1896; Table 1). In order to harmonize our imputation efforts with the array-based panels of the REGARDS, GenHAT, and Warfarin (see below) studies, we compiled a set of non-monomorphic and non-multi-allelic SNPs with MAF >1% that were genotyped as part of those studies. This yielded a total of 2,204,415 SNPs that were used as
